Despite the convenience of text messaging, with over 3 million messages sent per minute, its use as an enterprise communications tool is inherently risky.

TeleMessage, secure text messaging provider, warns against using standard text messaging and/or consumer messaging chat apps such as WhatsApp and iMessage in the workplace. Surveys show that 95 percent of employees send work-related information over their smartphones, 75 percent send sensitive or confidential information, and only 13 percent reported having regulations limiting the use of texting for work related tasks.

A Stolen or Lost Phone: A Potential Disaster

Unfortunately, this is an all too common occurrence, with 68 percent of victims unable to recover their device, and 44 percent of phone theft victims accidentally leaving their device behind in public settings.

It only takes one text to hack 950 million Android phones.

In one of the worst Android flaws ever uncovered, six critical vulnerabilities left 95 percent of Android phones open to an attack delivered by a simple multimedia text. “Remote code execution” bugs allow malicious hackers to infiltrate devices and ex-filtrate private data.

A New Class of Messaging Services for Workplaces

Technology research firm Gartner estimates that half of team coordination and communication by 2018 will occur via group collaboration apps, including secure text messaging apps.

And as employees are embracing consumer messaging apps, IT administrators warn that the use of consumer messaging apps pose additional risks when users’ identities cannot be authenticated.

How does secure text messaging work?

Company administration provides user accounts and allows the creation of corporate address books and groups, permitting enforcement of corporate policies.

Security features such as end-to-end encryption, self-destructing messages and remote data wipe from lost devices or deactivated accounts are included.

Users know when their messages have been sent, delivered and read.

dMessage archiving and auditing controls for compliance and regulation purposes are present.

The service provides API integration of the solution into corporate IT systems such as databases, ERP, CRM, alert systems, etc.